November 29, 1947 The United Nations Voted To Establish A Jewish State

November 29 is a significant date in the history of the state of Israel. The U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 recommending the partition of the British-mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The British held a mandate until May 1948.

The image above is the newspaper The Palestine Post, which was established in 1932 in British-mandate Palestine. It survived a terror attack and became The Jerusalem Post.

There are at least five important takeaways from this dramatic chapter in history.

First, actions have consequences. The Arab world opted for confrontation, not compromise. They gambled and lost. They paid a price, as have all defeated aggressors in history. They could not have it both ways – losing a war they began, then claiming victimhood.

Second, as the Uruguayan envoy stated, another path was possible. There could have been two states living side by side – one Jewish, the other Palestinian (though the UN language at the time referred to an Arab, not a Palestinian, state) – in peaceful coexistence for the past 68 years. The Jews, joined by a clear majority in the international community, sought precisely that outcome, but the Arab world rejected it out of hand. It turned into a clash in this instance between Arab maximalism and Jewish pragmatism. The latter won out.

Third, the UN recognized the validity of a Jewish state. In November 1947, no one knew what the name of the state would be – it was only announced on May 14, 1948, the actual date of Israeli independence – but what was clear to all was that it would be a Jewish state, and rightly so. The Jewish people fully merited a sovereign home in their ancient land and had every right to chart their own destiny, the UN General Assembly affirmed. Insofar as there is some debate today about the “legitimacy” of a Jewish state, that question was, in fact, addressed 68 years ago by the UN General Assembly. Read full article at Algemeiner